Wintry weather hits Greece and Turkey by Frances Runnalls
Heavy snowfall and freezing temperatures have shut down schools, paralysed traffic and grounded airplanes in Greece and Turkey.
Athens was covered in several centimetres of snow following two days of snowfall. The Acropolis was also covered by a layer of snow, basking in the morning sunshine as temperatures hovered around freezing.
Hundreds of motorists were stranded around Turkey, some major roads were closed, thousands of villages were cut off and at least two people have died from hypothermia. Traffic in the country’s biggest cities, the capital Ankara and Istanbul, was treacherous, with a blanket of snow causing a large number of road accidents and injuring several people.
The temperature in the centre of Athens fell to zero degrees Celsius (32F) with snow measuring about 15cms (6 ins) in outlying areas of the city. Temperatures in Ankara were expected to remain below zero until Wednesday.
Snow also made a rare appearance on the island of Crete early on Monday and even parts of Turkey’s Mediterranean coast experienced rare snowfall.
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